DULG

Installing Debian on Power Architecture® based systems using U-Boot

Author

This document was created by WolfgangDenk (wd {at} denx {dot} de)
and is based on work by Bernhard Kuhn (bkuhn {at} metrowerks {dot} com).

Introduction

This document describes how to install Debian GNU/Linux 3.0
(woody) on Power Architecture® based systems equipped with the U-Boot
bootloader. Both, the root filesystem and the installation
media will be mounted via NFS.

Status

The following installation instructions have been successfully
tested with TQM860L and LITE5200 boards and U-Boot-0.3.0. Other versions of
U-Boot should work as well.

Software Reqirements

On the Linux host, you need to have an TFTP and NFS server
up and running. For the target, you need to download
the Power Architecture® binary iso image "woody-powerpc-1.iso", i.e.
from:

Preparing the target for Installation

Setup several bootloader environment variables on the
U-Boot command line prompt. make sure that U-Boot
has been installed on the target, do a reset and
type in the following lines after the bootloader comes
up on the serial terminal (default com parameters:
115200,8,n,1):

Installing Debian

Reset the target. After the autoboot sequence, the kernel and
the installation root filesystem should be downloaded via
the network, both will be uncompressed, the kernel will boot
and mount the ramdisk. Finally, the Debian installer intro
will come up on the serial console. Just press to continue.

Skip the Keyboard configuration and select "Configure the hostname"
alternativly - just accept the default "debian"

The installation process will start, now. For the TQM860l, this
took about an hour to complete. After the installation, the
configuration of several packages will fail - this is not fatal.
Just press until you end up in the main menu, again.

Reset the target, wait until the bootloader shows up and
interrupt the autoboot sequence.

Preparing the target filesystem for operation

After the installation, you need to modify several files
on the target filesystem. It's easier to do these
changes on the export filesystem on the host:

In /tftpboot/192.168.1.20/etc/inittab, comment out the
following entries: